Have I learned a lesson about painting?
 

The lesson I seem to have learned is .... if you put enough clear on it you can solve most any problem with sandpaper and a buffer.

I reshot the clear on a door outside on a windy day .... the result was so much garbage that I was convinced it had to be sanded down and shot again. Started sanding with some of that "super fine" foam type sand"paper" ... maybe 1200 grit? When I finished I said what the heck, I'll hit it with the buffer and see what happens ... cleaned up beautiful.

Sanded and shot the second door (another door where I had the clear on too light) with a few more coats of clear (on a nice day) going to sand and buff that one too.

So if you get the base on right (metallic in my case) and get enough clear on it, you can solve a lot of issues like garbage, mild peel, minor runs etc. Sure beats having to do single stage paint work.

I agree. I had some bad orange peel. But, I had enough clear on to wet sand it down and look good.

I broke all the rules .... painted and cleared some doors about 8 months .. went way too light on the clear, stored them away last fall, brought them back out, lightly sanded until there was zero gloss anywhere but NOT through to the metallic paint, put maybe three more coats of clear on them .. then sanded and buffed that. Turned out great. Used SPI Universal clear.

Good Deal.

Same idea as a flow coat. I always flowcoat guitars etc that way I can eliminate many steps of stepped grits. I can usually start at 2000 or 2500 then buff after a flowcoat.

NYT, checked the sandpaper (stuff) I was using, only labeled "super fine" (included free with my paint order from Chad) and the part number has 3000 in it ... but it doesn't feel that fine. It does buff out with some work ... but would have been better off going with 2000 or 2500 wet ... then buff. Used some fairly aggressive compound as a first step on the buffer and while it was more work than it should have been it wasn't bad.

Single stage ( solid color only ) can be sanded and buffed with amazing results